An Overview of Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease was discovered and explained by German neurologist, Alois Alzheimer (1864-1915) in 1906. It is an illness that brings various changes in the conventional activity patterns of the brain.

Alzheimer’s is one of the most common causes of dementia, a brain deteriorating condition that seriously affect a person’s memory, behavior and mood.

Also referred to as Senile Dementia of the Alzheimer type (SDAT), Alzheimer’s disease is a neurological disorder that causes the nerve cells in the brain to die. In addition to this, it also brings about the formation of sticky plaques over particular parts of the brain leading to chaos and disorder in the brain activity.

It should be acknowledged that along with destroying brain cells and nerves, it tends to have an inevitably crucial impact on the brain’s capacity for storing memories as well as affects the transmitters that carry messages to the brain.

Stages of Alzheimer’s Disease

There are three increasingly critical stages of Alzheimer’s disease, each stage bringing changes in the daily activities, mood (s), behavior, and memory and thinking potential of the affected individual.

The stages are

• Mild stage: it is an early stage and most of the patients can manage their life but they need assistance and support
• Moderate stage: in this mid stage, patients have more trouble and problems, but they can still manage their lives to some extent with proper help and guidance
• Severe stage: it is also called late stage and patient of this stage cannot survive without assistance at all

Generally, Alzheimer tends to affect people over the age of 65 and gets uniformly worse as the time passes without any treatment or help.

Symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease

The following is a list of frequent symptoms experienced by Alzheimer patients:

• Becoming inexplicably confused
• Sudden personality changes
• Dramatic mood swings
• Forgetting recent events

Patients with Alzheimer’s tend lose their ability to remember, speak, make decisions and think. It generally starts with the failing of memory, mood swings and other related symptoms.

Causes of Alzheimer’s Disease

Although a lot of research has been carried out to find the causes of Alzheimer’s disease, researchers still do not know the precise cause(s) of Alzheimer disease. Thus, it is very difficult to predict what particular group or people are at maximal risk of this disease.

In some cases it has been linked to genes, thus it can be called as a hereditary disorder. However, it is not, essential for a person to have a family history of Alzheimer in order to become its victim.

Apart from serious head injuries, Down syndrome is also considered as a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, malnourishment, strokes, excessive smoking, and drug and alcohol abuse can also trigger Alzheimer’s disease.

Diagnosing Alzheimer’s Disease

It is not easy to diagnose Alzheimer’s as its symptoms are similar to various other disorders that affect the brain. It is imperative, therefore, for doctors to take the patient’s family history and conduct physical examination with complete blood tests and various X-rays.

• CAT scan and MRI are also carried out
• There are other tests such as Mini Mental Status, the blessed dementia scale and the mental state questionnaire
• Another promising way to diagnose Alzheimer’s is the use of Bio markers, but scientists are still working on it
• Brain Imaging is one of the methods used to diagnose Alzheimer’s

Preventing Alzheimer’s Disease

The best way to prevent Alzheimer’s disease is to control its triggering factors.  In case of Alzheimer’s being a heredity disease, taking nutritious diet, avoiding drugs and alcohol can keep this disease at bay for as long as possible.

To prevent Alzheimer’s disease, it is advised that you protect yourself from head injuries. Wearing a helmet when riding a motorbike or during sports is important.   It is also important that you live a healthy life, eat a balanced diet, avoid use of drugs and alcohol and exercise regularly to stay healthy for as long as possible.

It is not necessary that all people suffering from Alzheimer’s will be showing all the symptoms or the course of the disease will be same for all people. It can vary in individual cases.

While there is no effective treatment for Alzheimer’s, there are various drugs that are exceptionally instrumental in easing the symptoms in some patients.  Although there is no cure for the disease, advanced studies in brain research and useful treatments can give new hope to Alzheimer’s patients and their families.